About the Author
Susan Johnson, award-winning author of nationally bestselling novels, lives in the country near North Branch, Minnesota. A former art historian, she considers the life of a writer the best of all possible worlds. Researching her novels takes her to past and distant places, and bringing characters to life allows her imagination full rein, while the creative process offers occasional fascinating glimpses into complicated machinery of the mind. But most important...writing stories is fun.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
ST. PETERSBURG, JANUARY 1899
“Damn it, Amalie!” Prince Alexander hissed into the soft pink ear so close to his lips as he twirled the tall, queenly, blonde beauty through the crowd of elegantly dressed, coiffed, and bejeweled nobles dancing in the gilt-and-white rococo ballroom of the Dolgorouky palace. “You said Beckendorff was leaving town three days ago!”
Amalie, eminently sure of her loveliness tonight, dressed in an exceedingly low-cut, figure-hugging violet velvet gown, the stylish train sweeping out around her as Alex faultlessly swung them among the dancing couples, lifted seductively lashed lavender eyes, coyly smiled up into the rather forbidding saturnine face regarding her, and softly placated, “But, Sasha darling, how was I to know Boris would win two nights running at the Yacht Club gaming tables? He stays yet another night to see if his luck holds.”
“With him it has to be luck; a more heavy-handed player I have yet to see,” the prince churlishly retorted, the hours of drinking at the Yacht Club that afternoon and evening not conducive to moderating his unbridled Kuzan temper.
“Now, sweet, not everyone can be as devilishly fortunate as you at cards,” she said, and smiled winningly into the chill golden eyes glaring down at her. Amalie was a consummate flirt and seductress and had put her considerable skills to the ultimate test in retaining the fickle interest of Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Kuzan for five months. His liaisons rarely outlasted the new moon.
“It’s not fortunate, my dear,” the grim-faced man rebuked, “but practice and skill honed to a fine pitch through constant application. After gambling daily for ten years with a great variety of devout gamesters, one acquires a certain expertise. Your stupid husband’s the exception to the rule,” he discourteously concluded.
“Boris doesn’t have to be clever, love; his father’s estate in the Urals produces half the annual world output of platinum.”
“The Kuzan gold mines in Siberia have long precluded a need to worry about money, my dove, but our family still expects a certain degree of intellectual proficiency in their offspring. To simply put wineglass or spoon to lips is not enough.”
“Don’t be so cruel, Sasha. Boris has always been a bit overweight, true; but then, see how much more I appreciate your lean virility.” Countess Amalie Beckendorff delicately stirred her voluptuous body against the tall, muscular form of the prince and, her action having the desired effect, smiled complacently as she felt a rising hardness press into her belly.
“Damn you, Amalie,” Alex groaned softly. He’d been anticipating a session in bed with the countess for three days. “To hell with Boris. If we can’t go to your place, come to my town palace. My servants are scrupulously discreet. I’ll have you home before Boris leaves the Yacht Club.”
Clever and artful as Amalie was at dalliance, in the time-honored way of reigning beauties used to have men fawn over them, this time she miscalculated in assuming she had snared yet another admirer who could be teased and toyed with. She should have known better. Anyone acquainted with Prince Alexander Nikolaevich’s amatory exploits—and many were, since discretion was not a Kuzan trait—should have exercised more prudence. Centuries of wealth, imperiousness, and arrogance had made the Kuzans impervious to the niceties of polite society; they did as they pleased, boldly and flagrantly, and if scandal dogged their heels, they never deigned to notice.
Despite the prince’s notorious reputation for callous fickleness, the legions of pursuing women did not seem to be deterred; and he, for his part, delighted in their adulation, dispensing his favors with a democratic generosity. Beautiful, passionate women attracted him, and he was a most charming lover. Liberal with both himself and his wealth, he was unutterably irresistible. On one point alone the prince became intractable: He had a marked dislike for possessive women, and when the pretty faces attempted to cajole or coax him against his will, they very swiftly found themselves coolly and quickly displaced.
Countess Amalie was not prudent, and did exactly the wrong thing. In her monumental vanity, thinking to enthrall the prince more deeply, to draw him, in his need, more closely to her, she teasingly withheld her favors yet a third night. “I can’t tonight, love, I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Prince Alex was a practiced man about town—refined, sophisticated, supremely handsome, and incredibly wealthy. He had early on learned the rules of amatory courtship and was known, when the whim moved him, to genteelly court some striking belle for a fortnight or two; but no one in even the most optimistic state of mind would ever go so far as to declare that any of these capricious courtships were, even remotely, undertaken by an enamored man. He had never been enamored; the concept or feeling was totally foreign to his basically selfish, self-indulgent nature.
Alex had enjoyed the voluptuous charms of Amalie for an unheard-of five months precisely because those charms were voluptuous. She was in bed the exact antithesis of the cool, distant, golden-blonde goddess she portrayed in public. She was a wild, rapacious, adroit, and accomplished wanton whose technical proficiency, in conjunction with her natural inclinations, often boggled the imagination and most certainly elicited the ultimate sensual pleasure in the ageless dance of love.
“You can’t or you won’t, Countess Beckendorff?” Alex spat coldly, never missing a step as he effortlessly glided through the throng of dancers.
“I would if I could, Sasha,” Amalie mendaciously cooed.
“Come to my palace, then. I’ll have you home in two hours,” he curtly responded, his eyes cold as ice.
For the first time, a tinge of doubt appeared in Amalie’s mind. The proposal of two hours smacked very crudely of a rendezvous with a prostitute or a gypsy girl rather than with a woman by whose beauty and person the prince was bewitched. “I’m sorry, Sasha, I really can’t,” Amalie murmured and, continuing in the style that had been so successful in the past, offered him a warm, alluring glance from under heavy lashes.
“Bitch!” Alex exploded furiously. Disengaging himself, he turned on his heel and stalked across the room, pushing and shouldering his way rather rudely through the mass of dancers.
The stately, gorgeous Countess Beckendorff was ignominiously left standing in the center of the ballroom floor, while the heads of all the guests within twenty feet swiveled to stare as Alex’s explicit denunciation resounded through the room. Audible gasps escaped those near enough to hear, and other dancers turned to watch.
Amalie’s temper flared at the insult. Damn Sasha’s black soul! He’d pay for this evening’s work, she swore heatedly to herself. Mustering her dignity, she pressed her lips into a semblance of a polite smile, raised her classic chin, and walked slowly off the floor, trying to ignore the malicious, spiteful titters of the gossips that broke out immediately after their momentary stunned silence.
Alex raced down the red-carpeted marble staircase to the ground-floor foyer, oblivious of the craning necks and speculative glances that followed his precipitous descent. Reaching the foyer, he imperiously snapped his fingers, summoning a footman to bring his sable topcoat, and seethed inwardly with a cold anger as he waited what seemed an interminably long time for the task to be accomplished.
Bitch, damnable bitch of a courtesan, using her contrived theatrics on him! Two nights he had waited for her! Good God, he didn’t need any woman that badly. Females were a necessity to him, but never a compulsion. He could very nicely survive without Amalie, he reflected, while yet raging at her teasing artifice. Hell, there were gypsy women by the hundreds on the Islands, and plenty of soft, accommodating society girls and young wives, as far as that went, all equally willing. Still … Amalie was damnably pleasing to ride.
The apologetic footman finally arrived with the coat, and Alex shrugged his broad shoulders into the luxurious fur. A curt nod of dismissal; then he paused for a second, chastised himself for taking out his ill humor on the servant, and reached into his pocket and tossed the man two gold rubles, apologizing with a rueful grin. “Sorry, little brother; a cursed woman has put me out of temper.”
The servant broke into a wide smile as he pocketed the money, and with an eloquent shrug, he replied, “No woman is worth a second thought. Find a gypsy, Your Excellency; she will warm your blood and soothe your temper.”
Perhaps he’s right, Alex mused briefly; a couple of gypsy wenches and a fortnight at his favorite retreat near Moscow would dispel his churlish mood. It would be relaxing to have a few weeks’ respite from these feverish, enervating, ridiculous, disagreeable social activities. He and Ivan would do some wolf hunting. His mind, racing ahead, was already deep in contemplation, deciding which of his new guns he would bring along; and he mustn’t forget two or three cases of the very fine old Tokay he had just purchased. And, with the perverse inconsistency and monumental optimism of youth, Amalie was quite forgotten.
By the time the footman swept the door open before him and the prince stepped out into a swirl of blowing snow, his black mood had already lifted, replaced by an exhilarating anticipation of the beauty, peace, and sybaritic pleasures a stay in the country offered. He had left orders with his driver, Ivan, to have his troika at the ready in front of the entrance, having expected to be leaving early with Amalie. Now, as he raced down the torchlit steps toward his waiting troika, he shouted jubilantly, “Ivan! Ivan! We’re off to Podolsk—now, this instant!” and his heart soared with irrepressible exultation.
